Apart from the open quarrels regarding who should be the leader – whether yesterday’s discredited one or today’s, who many refuse to accept – the PN lacks credibility right now because it is incoherent in its policy statements.

True, efforts are being made to replace the empty controversies that had become part of the party’s lifestyle during the last year and a half. Nationalists have been refining some statements about economic and social policies. Still, there has been little clarity in their declarations. For instance they should provide their own description of what is happening in the country – and it has to be a valid, not a puerile version.

That description remains pending. Simply saying that the economy is lurching forward simply because of the sale of passports and immigration is the height of folly.

To be credible, the PN should declare where and how, given the opportunity, it would alter the present model on which the island is being run. Instead, Nationalists continue to project the impression of a tribe which at last has comprehended that its saints and warriors were never any better than mercenaries. That discovery has traumatised most members of the tribe.

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Political meetings

As part of the commitments in the campaign for the European Parliament elections, I attended some of the annual meetings held for Labour Party members in a number of locations. I could not help feeling nostalgic.

For long years, attending such meetings was one of the activities that I “had to” carry out. Actually I soon learnt not to consider it as a chore or a duty, but as a pleasant occasion. I used to enjoy the debates about how best to run the local Labour centre and the heated disputes about decisions that needed to be made in the management of the bar or the centre’s billiards competitions. In these disputes, one could recognize how the morale of members of a given centre – considered as citizens committed to the party’s approach, and also as “common” citizens – was shaping up.

Once more, I felt the same way now, even after so many years have elapsed.

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Referendum

A week ago, the influential “Le Monde” featured an extensive review about referenda and their role in national politics. I found it interesting even in the context of questions that I have long raised: how true is it that the recourse to referenda truly and validly reflects democratic values?

As things stand, in Switzerland – and there is no contest about its democratic credentials – referenda are a normal tool by which the country sets its choices. I was one of those who, in the past, proposed Switzerland as a model for how Malta could position itself internationally. But not by way of referenda.

The Nazi model dating from the 1920’s and 1930’s showed that a referendum can serve as a tool by which to create a dictatorship. However, beyond such considerations, a referendum on a matter that goes deep into the psyche of a people, can undermine totally a nation’s political framework. If it is not tied to a programme describing how the proposal being made to the people will be delivered and when – and if to back the proposal there is no serious organzation

Clearly, something quite like what is happening in the UK regarding Brexit…

Alfred Sant is Head of the Maltese Delegation in the S&D Group in the European Parliament. He was elected as an MEP in June 2014. He is also a member on the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and a member on the Delegation for relations with the United States. Read more